We cheered when Anne Quintal bought her first home.

Anne is a survivor of domestic abuse, which had escalated for years from emotional to verbal to physical. By the time she escaped from the relationship, her husband was in jail and she was in the hospital. She had lost much of her hearing and had a damaged jaw and missing teeth.

Anne Quintal

She was even homeless for a brief time before finding help at Jaden's Ladder, a Seacoast-area nonprofit organization dedicated to helping victims of abuse reclaim their lives. With their help, she turned her life around and vowed she would never be homeless again.

When Anne started looking to buy a home, she had no credit. Her controlling ex-husband hadn't allowed her to have any savings, credit cards, or loans in her name.

But when she applied for a Welcome Home Loan to buy a manufactured home in Seabrook Village Cooperative, Anne showed us that she had paid her utility bills on time for the past year. We approved her loan based on that payment record, and she has made every mortgage payment on time. As a homeowner, she's paying $175 a month less for her mortgage than she did to rent her apartment.

A recent blog by Community Loan Fund President Juliana Eades mentioned a report from the I'm Home Loan Data Collection Project. That report found that manufactured-home loans based on an applicant's total financial picture, like Anne's, were more likely to be repaid than those based on the borrowers' credit scores alone.

Anne wrote us lately, saying "I love to 'brag' that I was approved for a mortgage from 'Wall Street'. My life has never been happier and more secure than it is now." She loves her new home and is a volunteer mentor for other domestic abuse survivors at Jaden's Ladder.

We're inspired by her new life, honored to be a small part of it, and wish her many happy years in her new home.

Ron Thompson is a Welcome Home Loans Mortgage Loan Originator at the Community Loan Fund.

NMLS #225348. Licensed by the New Hampshire Banking Department.

Lack of credit history didn't prevent abuse survivor from buying home

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